Maybe it is the low prices, the fact that Steemit Inc seems to be struggling to deliver on its promises, struggling to get along with the community, struggling to communicate openly and transparently. There are some noticeable changes taking place at the moment with STINC and @ned himself.

Delegation removal aside, Steemit is powering down and moving $8.5 million in Steem without a word. Ned is emptying his account and moving Steem to exchanges, not a word from Ned or STINC about any of this.

From the outset, one could be forgiven for thinking that STINC and Ned are cashing out and leaving the project to die. Something tells me that might not be the case, but if you were new to this ecosystem and presented with these pieces of information, what else do you have to go on?

I don't take issue with Steem itself pulling delegations, I think in the end undelegating from large projects evens the playing field, Steemit and dApps should be separate from one another. STINC handles the tech side of things and the community handles funding and building of their apps.

However, I think the way @ned and STINC handled this was 100% wrong. The least they could have done is given you a heads-up, a little warning they were going to do this instead of just making a surprise move, especially combined with the powering down and transfer of large amounts of Steem to exchanges.

A company responsible for a blockchain with a market cap that puts them at position 50 needs to learn how to communicate and operate properly. If we want Steem to grow, we need STINC to put on its big boy pants and stop shooting themselves in the foot.

Perhaps it is inexperience, but @ned has shown time and time again he lacks the experience and maturity to run a company like Steem. The way he responds to criticism, the way he seemingly makes knee-jerk community affecting decisions without consultation, let alone warning. These kind of moves can kill a project. An inexperienced pilot flying a plane is more likely to crash than an experienced one, especially when things start going wrong.

I have no doubt DSound is going to get through this and be alright. The Steem ecosystem is very supportive and DSound itself is a great dApp that people would never let die.